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this post was submitted on 28 Dec 2023
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The reason why Valve does all this cool shit is because it's a private company and not publicly traded. It owes nothing to no one.
As soon as a company goes public, it owes its shareholders its profits and has an obligation to make as much as possible and use whatever means it can to do so.
Gabe doesn't care. He does what he wants and he knows what his customers want.
This is super true in so many ways. I worked for a private company for several years and about 2 years ago they were bought out by a public company. Things changed real quick lol. The original owners swore they would never sell too. I til they did one day lol
Well, things change. With time I became more wary of people who claim they will "never" or "always" do something. It's not a realistic thing most of the time
Yeah I'd never trust those people.
Definitely, though when they inevitably change their mind, it stings like an implied promise broken.
I hope my company does because I have shares
Such a deep meaning behind such simple comment 🌚
Don't forget the part where they're able to do that because they basically own the Windows market so pursuing projects that won't see a RoI in the short term is possible for them but wouldn't be for others.
Private companies have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders just the same as public ones. The big difference is that they tend to have far fewer shareholders and they usually all have some personal relationship. So it's less likely to result in a lawsuit.
Gabe apparently owns 50.1% of Valve. I don't know who owns the rest (I'm reading some places that he got divorced, so possibly his ex-wife?), but if they're not happy with how it's being run they could certainly sue. That being said it seems like a money making machine at the moment, so why would you.
Valve is not a publicly traded company though. They don't really care if investors aren't making the expected profits.
I mean, they care, but it's all Gabe who decides in the end. If he doesn't care as much then that's the way it is.
“HE kNoWnS whAT CuStoMeRs WaNT”
No he doesn’t, people kept saying HL3 and there’s no HL3. The company committed crimes and illegal activities in many countries.
Stop the propaganda nonsense.
Those are quite the claims. Got any sources to back them up?
I put an admittedly low amount of effort into searching (skimmed a couple dozen links or so) for evidence of crimes and came up empty. I'd be curious to see trustworthy sources about this as well.
Re: HL3. It's a particularly infamous example of a game cancelation, and it does suck but studios canceling games happens.
Edit: Excepting antitrust lawsuits. I wasn't surprised to see that and glossed over it, but it does qualify as a crime and I would say is a reasonable accusation. I didn't read more in to it than that, yet.
Edit 2: The TL;DR: of the antitrust lawsuit if you weren't aware (I wasn't) is that Steam is taking a cut of up to 30% which they're arguing is excessive. Game makers don't really have a choice given that Steam is the market leader. Here's a random newer article, more about Gabe having to appear in court, but it covers the basics. https://www.techspot.com/news/100969-gabe-newell-ordered-testify-person-valve-antitrust-lawsuit.html
30% has been the industry standard rate for decades and unlike consoles or mobile, PC game developers have more choices than any other even down to self-selling. It’s such a nothing lawsuit.
This is one dev upset because their game they spent what felt like 50 years developing one of the first “big” Indie titles didn’t make them enough money.
While I won't comment as to the validity of the lawsuit (that is for the courts):
I don't know enough of the math behind the Steam CDNs and services to know if it is worth the cut. But, much like I am always going to whinge at DLC prices even as I acknowledge that it is "a good deal", I am also going to generally side with "devs deserve more money".
*: Take this with a grain of salt since it is a large claim and there are obviously no citations. But Steam did not invent digital distribution and companies like Strategy First (?) existed. And their cut for the massively inflated game prices (80 USD in the early 2000s...) was a LOT higher than 30%. Ironically, Valve used the same "you get more money if you sell with us" argument.
I read that! About it being the industry standard. The background on the developer is news to me.
I guess the question is, is 30% too much? Just because it's the standard doesn't mean it isn't too high. But I'm not knowledgeable in the financial side of the gaming industry nor do I know what valve's overhead is like so I truly don't know the answer.
Hl3 will come out if and when valve comes up with interesting new engine tech. The story of hl1 was the pitch the gravity gun and physics of source was the reason for hl2. If vr had seen mass adoption hl alyx would have been a Main line game or maybe include more post hl2 content.
Thanks! I'll give it a read.
People don't even know what people want. Gabe knows people expect HL3 to be some godly game and he knows what they make will in all likelihood not live up to that image. Why bother if it will just bring disappointment to everyone? Just save the effort and enjoy the memes.
*and free publicity
What makes you think he doesn't know people want HL3? Even you know, and you don't strike me as the brightest bulb in the knife drawer.
regardless of Gabe knowing what people want, the point about being privately owned stands. it really is the publicly traded companies that are the problem. at least private ones aren't legally obligated to pursue profits over all else. they have the choice to be evil. they may still make that choice, but public companies can be sued by their investors for being "charitable to customers" instead of maximizing profits.
I've heard that there's been a marked "financialization" of corporations in the last decade or so. More and more companies make more money from leveraging/leasing/whatever rather than actually making a product and selling it to people.
As a private company, Valve gets to avoid this.
You're not very good at this
Half-Life Alyx wasn't good enough for you? Sheesh, go play ANY of the HL mods or many other new games released. Bad hill to die on...